[Good evening. from the studios of KBBF, the first bilingual community radio station in the United States, this is your host, Nora Villanueva, welcoming you to this edition of “Classical Tones,” your program of classical music “with a Latin connection.” Every week at this time we explore the musical culture of Spain and Latin America.]

Let’s start off with music from Venezuela. The Venezuelan composer Juan Bautista Plaza wrote more than 300 works in his lifetime. He also was a conductor, an organist, a music professor and an important musicologist of Venezuelan music of the colonial era. His “Venezuelan Romantic Fugue” was written in 1950 as an homage to Johann Sebastian Bach on the occasion of the second centennial of his death in 1750. Here we have a performance by the Simón Bolívar Symphony Orchestra of Venezuela under the baton of Maximiano Valdes.

The “zarzuela” is the name of traditional Spanish light opera, similar to the works of the English Gilbert and Sullivan or the Viennese Joseph Strauss. The difference is that, rather than dozens of works, literally thousands of zarzuelas were written and the form has a history going back to the mid 17th century. Here is an example, a Serenade from the zarzuela “Coplas de Ronda” by Francisco Alonso. The tenor Plácido Domingo is accompanied by the Principal Chorus of the National Lyric Theater and the Madrid Symphony Orchestra directed by Manuel Moreno-Buendía.

That was the Serenata from the zarzuela “Coplas de Ronda” by Francisco Alonso performed by tenor Plácido Domingo, the Principal Chorus of the National Lyric Theater and the Madrid Symphony Orchestra conducted by Manuel Moreno-Buendía.

An exceptional career, for length and consistency: that, in a nutshell, is the curriculum of Victoria de los Angeles, one of the most acclaimed sopranos of the 20th century. Of Catalan origin, she was born in Barcelona on November 1st, 1923 and was performing up until 1994. Here’s a recording from 1954 where she sings “On m’appelle Manon” and “Ah, Des Grieux!” from the opera Manon by Jules Massenet with tenor Cesare Valletti and The Metropolitan Opera House Orchestra & Chorus, directed by Pierre Monteux.

You are listening to Classical Tones, the program of classical music “with a Latin connection” from the studios of KBBF in Santa Rosa, California. We just heard two operas from the opera Manon by Jules Massenet performed by soprano Victoria de los Ángeles, tenor Cesare Valletti and the Metropolitan Opera House Orchestra and Chorus conducted by Pierre Monteux

Next we have two piano pieces by the Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos from his “Ciclo Brasileiro”:

– Impressões seresteiras (Serenade Impressions)

– Dança do índio branco (Dance of the White Indian)

The “white Indian” is a nickname for Villa-Lobos himself, which highlights the mixture of civilized and uncultured elements in the make-up of both the composer and his music. On this recording, we’ll hear the Chilean pianist Pola Baytelman.

Asturias is a province in the north of Spain. It is also the name of a musical work by the celebrated Spanish Catalan composer Isaac Albéniz. In the first movement you can hear echoes of the Spanish guitar, even though the piece was actually written for the piano. Since then it has been transcribed for many different instruments including, not surprisingly, the guitar. We’ll hear Narciso Yepes perform on this recording.

Without a doubt the greatest Cuban composer of the 19th century was probably Ignacio Cervantes. His career started at the age of 7 when he played the piano for the American composer Louis Moreau Gottschalk, who was one of the most influential figures in the musical life of the western hemisphere at that time. Gottschalk was very impressed and Cervantes ended up studying with him from age 14 to 17. In 1865, when he was 18 years old, he went on to study at the Paris Conservatory, where he won first prize. While he was in Europe, he became friends with Rossini, Gounod and Franz Liszt. Despite his stay in Europe, Cervantes’ works never stray far from his Cuban roots. A good example is his 41 “Dances for Piano.” We’ll hear numbers 1 and 2, titled “Soledad” (Solitude) and “No me toques” (Don’t Touch Me)).

“The Spanish Mozart”, Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga, shares several similarities with the real Mozart. For example, he was born on January 27, 1806, the 50th anniversary of the birth of Johannes Chrysostomum Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart. Not only did they share a birthday, they also shared the first two given names (Juan Crisóstomo and Johannes Crysostomum). Like Mozart, Arriaga was a child prodigy – he started writing music when he was 12 and completed an opera at age 14. Both composers died young, in Arriaga’s case 10 days before his 20th birthday. His works were forgotten for several generations until being rediscovered at the end of the 19th century in the course of the gradual development of a national musical consciousness in Spain. His only symphony was not performed until 62 years after his death and was not published until 1933. So let’s hear the “Symphony in D” by Juan Crisóstomo Arriaga. The Algarve Orchestra is conducted by Álvaro Cassuto.

That was the Symphony in D Major by Juan Crisóstomo de Arriaga performed by the Algarve Orchestra conducted by Álvaro Cassuto. And we heard it here on Classical Tones, the program of classical music “with a Latin connection” from the studios of KBBF in Santa Rosa, California.

The Spanish composer Gaspar Cassadó transcribed many works by other composers for his own instrument, the cello. We’ll hear two transcriptions, the first called “Chanson et Danse” by Frederic Mompou and the famous “Liebestraum” by Franz Liszt. On the cello is Maria Mircheva with Perfecto García Chornet accompanying on the piano.

Like the cello, the guitar is another instrument with a small repertoire, so many performers have to transcribe music originally written for other instruments. In 1902 the French composer Maurice Ravel composed a piece for piano called “Pavane for a Dead Princess”. It is an evocation of a pavane that a long-dead princess might have danced at the Spanish court. Ravel intended the piece to be played extremely slowly, but when he heard a particularly plodding performance by one performer, he commented that the piece was called “Pavane for a dead princess”, not “dead pavane for a princess.” Hopefully that’s not the case with this performance by guitarist Angel Romero of his own transcription.

Next we have a piece by a contemporary of Maurice Ravel, his countryman Claude Debussy. It’s the famous “Clair de Lune”. The celebrated Spanish pianist José Iturbi was active during the first half of the 20th century. He made a number of recordings during the early history of the phonograph. This is from an old 78 rpm record purchased at a garage sale here in Santa Rosa. The sound quality may be lacking, but quality of the playing comes through just fine, I think.

[I want to thank you for tuning in to “Classical Tones”, the classical music show from the studios of KBBF. We’re here every week with two hours of the best music and musicians from Spain and Latin America. This is your host Nora Villanueva, hoping to be with you again next week.]